The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-02-04

Il L
The appropriation asked for the second
State Normal school this year is q just
and reasonable as well as q necessary
demand upon the legislature, and ifany
appropriation is passed upon It's honest
merits, this should not fail. Three years
agoit was evident to the managers and
patrons of the institution that more
room would soon be needed lifts growth
and prosperity was to continue. Two
years ago an appropriation bill for Its
enlargement was passed, but unfortun-
ately the Governor deemed an appro-
priation Of double the amount for State
fair grounds at the capitol of more i'm
pcrtance to the State and approved the
bill for that appropriation and vetoed
the bill for the second State Normal But
despite all these disheartening draw
backs, under the able management of
President Soaring and his able corps of
teachers, not excelled in fitness and ca
pacity for their positions in any Normal
school in the Northwest, it has held its
Onward course and is now the largest
Normal school in the State and has on
its rolls GA pupils with only room 10
properly accommodate two-thirds the
number. In addition to having much
the largest attendance it has acquired a
reputation second to no other similar
institution in the great West, and its
patrons are making no unreasonable de-
mand upon the State when they ask for
their share of the State funds applied TO
educational purposes, a sum sufficient
to afford their sons and daughters equal
comforts and conveniences to those In
any similar institution in the State. This
is not local matter. 1t is one in which
the agriculturists of all the southern or
southwestern portion of the State are
deeply interested. Nearly two-thirds OF
the pupils in all the classes, exclusive OF
the model class, are from counties out
side of Blue Earth county, and nearly
four-fifths outside of Mankato. This is
emphatically the high school of the rur-
al district, where the sparse populace
precludes the possibility of maintaining
schools, where the ambitious sons and
daughters of parents equally ambitious
that their children should not be behind
the offsprings Of those enjoying better
advantages in securing knowledge OF
the ways of society, can secure
an education that would fl
them to enter life upon an
equal footing with those who have adj
vantages nearer at hand, and if any one
doubts their influence upon the future
taste for intelligence of those who have
enjoyed the advantages of this institu
ton, let him visit some of the ruraI
neighborhoods or towns where they re-
side, and note the manners and culture
of the people. You will find in those
communities as refined and intelligent
ladies and gentlemen as you can find
anywhere, and they keep up theil
studies, literary societies and entertain.
ments, and the social refinement inculc.
ated and acquired during their course
in the Normal is not the least valuable
of the acquisitions obtained during their
course. The friends and patrons of the
second State Normal ask nothing fol
building ladies homes; they simply ask
that the legislature will give them, as il
has the first State Normal, the necessary
means to make comfortable and ample
provision for the reception and instruc.
ton Of the young ladies and gentlemen
that shall seek in Its classic hall the
education and training that shall I'll
them to grace their future homes in our
fair State in manner that will be alike
credItable TO themselves and the State.
Young boys and girls that will leave
their homes and 60 among strangers,
rent room and board themselves, OF
work for their board as many of them
have done and are now doing, are not
the girls and boys that will hold in light
esteem the law-givers, who, as represen.
tatives of the State, confer these advant-
ages upon them. They will neither con.
tumn the munifcence of the State OF
disgrace themselves. The sum asked If
none too large for the necessities of the
case. The amount asked for improve.
ment of the ground will be none toe
much, and we hope this legislature will
pass the bill upon Its own merits.